The concept of one-shotting psychological and mental issues is quite intriguing, I must admit. I really do think there’s a sizable blindspot around actual solutions for tons of mental issues, and not because I think people are faking or lying about wanting to change. I do it myself, even; when I think about trying to make my life better, I often get caught up in the absurdities of my mind and what it does, and that System-1-FEELS like the correct place to start.
For some stuff, I do think there can be one-neat-trick style fixes, too, but that they’re often quite out of left field and hard to synthesize on one’s own, which does rather suck. The “and?” example you have above fits that quite well, it’s not something someone would ordinarily say (well, out loud, the fear of coming off as rude will stop a lot of people).
Speaking of, maybe one of the biggest obstacles here is making the other person feel heard and understood and not dismissed? You seem to do quite well per your accounts, but man alive I’d say probably >99.5% of Internet discussions I read that involve a) two sides and b) any level of distrust devolve into pointless arguing about what was said, meant, heard, and felt. A real shame, and I think this can come up a lot in therapeutic environments, too, where the therapist knows what they want to say but must not say it because the patient needs to realize it for themselves via gentle questioning and guiding. Communication is really hard and no one’s intended message ever makes it 100% over (see https://thezvi.substack.com/p/just-saying-what-you-mean-is-impossible).
The concept of one-shotting psychological and mental issues is quite intriguing, I must admit. I really do think there’s a sizable blindspot around actual solutions for tons of mental issues, and not because I think people are faking or lying about wanting to change. I do it myself, even; when I think about trying to make my life better, I often get caught up in the absurdities of my mind and what it does, and that System-1-FEELS like the correct place to start.
For some stuff, I do think there can be one-neat-trick style fixes, too, but that they’re often quite out of left field and hard to synthesize on one’s own, which does rather suck. The “and?” example you have above fits that quite well, it’s not something someone would ordinarily say (well, out loud, the fear of coming off as rude will stop a lot of people).
Speaking of, maybe one of the biggest obstacles here is making the other person feel heard and understood and not dismissed? You seem to do quite well per your accounts, but man alive I’d say probably >99.5% of Internet discussions I read that involve a) two sides and b) any level of distrust devolve into pointless arguing about what was said, meant, heard, and felt. A real shame, and I think this can come up a lot in therapeutic environments, too, where the therapist knows what they want to say but must not say it because the patient needs to realize it for themselves via gentle questioning and guiding. Communication is really hard and no one’s intended message ever makes it 100% over (see https://thezvi.substack.com/p/just-saying-what-you-mean-is-impossible).